Saturday, November 11, 2017

Author-educator
Melissa Stewart shares ideas for helping K-5 students develop
information literacy skills as they read award-winning nonfiction books and
produce their own informational writing. Attendees will go home with creative
ways to support ELA curriculum standards as well as the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Lerner.

READING
Nonfiction Smackdown!
Upper elementary studentsread two nonfiction books on the same topic.
Then they evaluate and compare the two titles, recording their thinking on a worksheet that other students can
use to help them make book choices.

Sibert
Smackdown!
Similar to Nonfiction Smackdown!, but
books are selected from a list of picture books contenders that I compile on my
website. The worksheet uses a kid-friendly version of the criteria considered
by the real Sibert committee. Several librarians have also used their own
creative ideas to record students’ thinking, such as Padlet, Flipgrid, posters,
and voting forms where students write the rationale for their choice.

Inspired by the annual March Madness basketball tournament,
students participate in a month-long, whole-school activity to select their
favorite nonfiction title. Can be combined with the Nonfiction Smackdown!

“March
Madness has not only created an energy and excitement for read aloud; it has
also exposed students to more nonfiction. [It has been] a springboard for
discussions of text features and structures, vocabulary and author's purpose.”
–Instructional Coach

“I like that these
nonfiction books really make you think about things for a while and then
sometimes your thinking changes.” –Fifth-grade student

Real
Reviewers! Upper elementary students read nonfiction book reviews on
Goodreads. Then they read a nonfiction book of their choosing and write book
review, using the Goodreads reviews as a guide. After a round of proofreading,
student type the reviews into the school district’s library catalog (http://destiny.carthagecsd.org/).

#ClassroomBookaDayRead aloud andbriefly
discuss a picture book every day of the school year. Display book covers, so
it’s easy to refer back to them for comparison to new texts (theme, text
structure, voice, writing style). They can also be used as mentor texts during
writing workshop. You can work with teachers to get them started and make book
recommendations or you could adopt a classroom.

Ideas are all around us. I can get
inspired by things I read, things people say to me, or things I see or
experience myself. For me, the challenge is keeping track of the ideas, so I
have one when it’s time to begin a new book. I have an idea board in my office,
and I use it to remind myself about ideas I’ve had.

Teachers could have an idea board in
their classroom or they could encourage students to write their ideas down on
the last page of their writer’s notebook. ABC Brainstorming can work too. Other
ideas include:

Why do students copy rather than
expressing ideas and information in their own words? Because they haven’t taken
the time to analyze and synthesize the material they’ve collected so that they
can make their own meaning. In other words, they haven’t found a personal
connection to the content, and that’s a critical step in nonfiction writing.

Pairs or small groups
participate in collaborative note taking on paper or using google docs, so that
struggling students can access the thought process of more advanced students.
This activity also reduces copying from sources materials.

Encourage students to use a wide variety
of source materials, including some that it's impossible to copy, such as
personal observations, webcams, and interviews. To facilitate interviews, your
school can develop a list of adults in the school community with knowledge in
particular area.

Create
a Visual SummaryWhen
students take the time to represent their notes visually as infographics or
other kinds of combinations of words and pictures as part of their pre-writing
process, they will find their own special way of conveying the information. And
using that lens, they can then write a report that is 100 percent their own.

Use Thought PromptsInvite students to synthesize their research and make
personal connections by using some of the following thought prompts:
—The idea this gives me . . .

—I was surprised to learn . . .

—This makes me think . . .

—This is important because . . .

WRITING

Struggling with Structure

While
writing Can an Aardvark Bark?, I
experimented with 4 different text structures over a 4 year period before the
manuscript was accepted for publication. The timeline on my website shows the
details of my process through a series of 8 video, which take about 11 minutes
to watch. The timeline also featuresdownloadable version of 4 rejected manuscripts, so students can see what
changed over time.

After
reading No Monkeys, No
Chocolate, upper elementary students make book maps to get a
stronger sense of the architecture of the main text’s cumulative sequence
structure. Then each child chooses one example from the text and rewrite it
with a cause and effect text structure. The third and fourth links are for
worksheets that guide a similar activity based on the content in Can an Aardvark Bark?

Same Structure, New TopicStudents read a
selection of my books and chose one to use as a mentor text. They created a
book that emulated the structure and style of my book but presented information
about a different topic.

Typing
out a mentor text can help students get a fee for the flow. They can study how
the text was constructed by highlighting various elements with different
colors. They can use a similar technique to look for ways to improve their own
works in progress.

Radical Revision!
First graders write a piece of nonfiction. When the students are in second
grade, teachers share the No
Monkeys, No ChocolateRevision
Timeline on my website and ask the children to revise
the piece they wrote in first grade. Both drafts are placed in a folder, and
students revise again in third, fourth, and fifth grade.

Authentic Illustration
After K-2 students write nonfiction about a topic of their choice, children in
another class at the same grade level illustrate the text. Then the original
writers review the artists’ work and write a polite letter asking for any
necessary changes. This activity mimics the process nonfiction picture book
authors go through when they review sketches created by an illustrator.

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About Me

Melissa Stewart is the award-winning author of more than 180 nonfiction books for children. Her lifelong fascination with the natural world led her to earn a B.S.
in biology and M.A. in science journalism. When Melissa isn’t writing or speaking to children or educators, she’s usually exploring natural places near her home or around the world.